Quote of the Day
To love someone is to see a miracle invisible to others.
Francois Mauriac
Readership Drops to New Low
Granted, February is the shortest month, but my blog readership dropped to its lowest total in 9 months (no statistics available before last June), roughly half the level of just 4 months ago and down almost a third from last month. I'm puzzled because the posts I wrote over the weekend are very well-written but have gotten trivial readership. (It is weird, though: I get the definite impression someone at Fox News is reading my blog. There have been times I've heard after the fact clips on Hannity or Special Report where the discussions are uncannily similar.) I have largely lost my foreign following; for example, Denmark and Great Britain are my second and fourth ranking country viewers overall, but I didn't get a single pageview from either country last month.
I think every writer would prefer to see growing versus shrinking readership, but I would write the same blog without any readership, and I have relied more on organic growth of the blog than promoting it elsewhere. I did mention I may publish on a less frequent basis (which may have confused some readers). There are no short-term plans to change my daily publishing schedule, although I may serialize some commentaries or change the number and types of segments.
Obama Runs His Mouth on Public Sector Unions
I don't think it does anybody any good when public employees are denigrated or vilified or their rights are infringed...We need to attract the best and the brightest to public service. These times demand it. We're not going to attract the best teachers for our kids, for example, if they only make a fraction of what other professionals make. - President Obama, Remarks at DC Governor Conference
Pathetic. Unworthy of a legitimate President of the United States. I'm used to Obama creating straw men; it's a matter of intellectual laziness and lack of integrity. I have cited study after study that shows that public sector workers make comparably more, especially when you factor in benefits. There is nothing that Governor Walker (R-WI) is doing to infringe on worker rights. There are civil service worker protections. Public unions aren't being outlawed. They still have the right to petition the legislature and the governor, just like any other taxpayers. State teachers are hardly being paid "a fraction of what other professionals make"; as I argued in yesterday's post, the EPI study being cited has all sorts of methodological problems--it understates the relative costs of public pensions, retiree health care, and basically compares apples and oranges: it doesn't compare public vs. private school teaching compensation, within or across states, but it assumes that workers would be working in Wisconsin's largest companies and there is no value for the relative higher security of public employment (the layoff/termination ratio is a fraction of what occurs in the private sector, and that is a neglected factor in the grossly deficit EPI model). What Walker is attempting to control are the stealth benefit costs which go far beyond comparable benefits in the private sector. These are real costs that affect overall state resources given limited state revenues.
The public union and the government have mutually incompatible goals. The government is accountable to the people (voters). The government must live within the bounds of its revenues. The public union wants to maximize membership and provide more compensation for its members; it also negotiates/maintains a set of inflexible rules which restricts the employer in managing costs (and in fact require the employer to hire more resources). The fact is 37% of public sector workers are unionized (up from near-zero at the end of the 1950's). In contrast, private sector unions now have about 20% of the membership they held in the mid-1950's, and in fact the number of public sector union members now exceeds private sector union members.
We already see the results of the adverse effects of the heavily unionized auto industry (in the US), which cannot compete against more flexible Asian and European competitors. The idea that a similarly bloated public sector can compete in a global economy is simply a state of denial. Just as businesses saw the writing on the wall in terms of defined-benefit versus defined-contribution plans decades ago, but most states ignored the coming crisis of the largest generation starting to retire, we now see unions trying to retain the unsustainable benefits gained in the past. As I pointed out over the weekend, it's gotten to the point even if you convert new public sector workers to defined-contribution plans and other related reforms, you can see the public sector in California having to pay up to a third of revenue just to handle pensions over the coming few years--and maintain these contributions for decades. It's going to be a zero-sum game with current government operations. You can't hike growth-crippling, job-killing taxes on businesses and individuals just to meet unsustainable promises. Everybody has to share in sacrifice. It was not right for California, drunk with capital gain revenues during the Nasdaq stock bubble in 1999, to assume the gravy train was permanent and make promises to public sector workers that seemed to make sense then but now are threatening solvencies of municipalities or even the state. It's time for the unions to give back.
So listen very carefully, President Obama and unions: IT'S NOT PERSONAL; IT'S BUSINESS. I have multiple relatives in the public sector; I have worked in the public sector. It has nothing to do with the worthiness of workers. It has to do with shared sacrifice and the need of the public sector to do its fair share.
Taking on the Pro-Palin Wingnuts
My first response to a recent The Hill post was, "Who the heck is Tammy Bruce?" She seems to be some self-appointed pro-Palin defender media conservative, a former NOW leader, pro-abortion choice lesbian. (This ally may come as a shock to social conservatives, whom lionize Sarah Palin for knowingly carrying her Down Syndrome baby to term.) I have written several critical posts about Palin interweaving politically correct/victimization rhetoric, which REAL conservatives loathe with a passion: we believe in taking initiative and accepting responsibility; we realize that personal attacks come with the territory and in fact have been part of politics since the beginning of the republic; we also understand life isn't always fair. Ms. Bruce isn't doing Sarah Palin any favor by not letting her stand on her own two feet.
Perhaps Ms. Bruce doesn't have a good memory of the 2008 campaign, but Sarah Palin had this to say: "You think this is just baby fat, right, from having Trig four months ago. No, it's some thick skin in there also." What kind of professional temperament, of not sweating the small stuff is a flame-throwing response to any imagined slight? Of going after her former brother-in-law state trooper as governor? Of going after a late-night comedian for a bad joke and implying he is a pedophile? Of calling fellow Republican Rick Santorum a "knuckle dragging Neanderthal" after Santorum questioned her decision to turn down a keynote address opportunity at CPAC? Is the feminist cause best served by advocating a gender-based double standard, that female politicians should be held to a lower standard of professionalism, that she shouldn't expect to put up with the same obnoxious, disrespectful behavior male politicians have had to deal with for centuries?
Yeah, I know: Ms. Bruce will say that the issue is that Sarah Palin is being treated worse. Lady, the burden of proof is on you; I'm not conceding the false allegation which is little more than predictable feminist rhetoric. Look, there are scores of veteran female legislators and executives across parties whom have not been the lighting rod Sarah Palin has been. The issue isn't so much with Ms. Palin's gender as with her words and actions. I assure you if a male Senator (instead of Senator Boxer) had rebuked a general calling him 'sir': "General, I would appreciate it if you called me 'Senator'; I worked so hard to earn that title...", he would have been pilloried by me and other conservatives.
I don't have a Twitter account, but if we go by my blog readership statistics, my Twitter followers could probably have an annual convention in a phone booth. In fact, if someone asked Dr. Scamell (my dissertation chair) whether he thought I would have a Twitter account, Richard would probably laugh. "Ron write a message in 140 words or less? It takes him 1500 words just to introduce himself..." (If I do decide to create an account, I'll announce it in the blog.)
I'll simply reference a few of Ms. Bruce's provocative tweets. I don't think veteran politicians need me to defend them, but I wanted to comment, even if the targets choose to ignore Ms. Bruce.
First, Ms. Bruce goes after my favorite governor, Governor Chris Christie (R-NJ), by naming him "Mr. Smug", saying that his shtick is screaming at people, accusing him of being hypocritical by not also going after Obama, suggesting the only thing (overweight) Christie is good at is overeating fattening foods, and finally arguing that Christie is not even a very good Republican, missing the mark on litmus test issues like illegal immigration, gun control, etc.
I would pay for tickets to see Ann Coulter to go after Tammy Bruce; Coulter has made it she strongly supports Chris Christie for President (Christie has repeatedly stated that he is not interested in running in 2012) and doesn't support Sarah Palin except as a last resort opponent to Obama. Coulter is using her version of tact to suggest that Sarah Palin is very good at her current shtick of snidely blasting Obama via Facebook or Twitter and she can better serve policy reform from that standpoint. Why is Coulter backing Christie? For one thing, Christie does very well in poll match-ups against Obama; second, Christie is remarkably direct and articulate, particularly in dealing with self-indulgent teachers and other public servants oblivious to the idea of shared sacrifice in a tough global economy; third, Christie doesn't just talk the talk (like Obama), but he walks the walk. Other fiscal conservatives talk about spending and tax reform; Christie delivers, despite having to deal with a Democratic legislature.
The next point I want to make is that Christie, in discussing Palin's scripted persona, was not giving an unsolicited opinion (unlike Palin's spontaneous broadsides). In fact, Christie, in giving his constructive advice, was not saying anything others (including myself, repeatedly, in this blog) haven't already made. What Christie was referencing is not a matter of opinion but indisputable fact: Sarah Palin rarely lets herself getting booked into anything other than a softball interview (e.g., Sean Hannity). She knows that she did not do well in the national interviews, and any faithful reader to this blog knows that I was most appalled by her performance during the 2008 VP debate. Let's go to the video tape:
IFILL [moderator]: Who do you think was at fault [for the subprime meltdown]? I start with you, Governor Palin. Was it the greedy lenders? Was it the risky home-buyers who shouldn't have been buying a home in the first place? And what should you be doing about it?PALIN: Darn right it was the predator lenders, who tried to talk Americans into thinking that it was smart to buy a $300,000 house if we could only afford a $100,000 house. There was deception there, and there was greed and there is corruption on Wall Street. And we need to stop that.
IFILL: Governor, please if you want to respond to what he said about Senator McCain's comments about health care?PALIN: I would like to respond about the tax increases...
BIDEN: [McCain] did support deregulation almost across the board. That's why we got into so much trouble.IFILL: Would you like to have an opportunity to answer that before we move on?PALIN: I'm still on the tax thing because I want to correct you on that again... And I may not answer the questions the way that either the moderator or you want to hear, but I'm going to talk straight to the American people and let them know my track record also.
I'm just arbitrarily selecting a few of Palin's low-points, all but ignored in the media conservative rush to universally praise Palin's performance, allegedly putting Biden in his place.
First of all, Sarah Palin doesn't understand (at least in this debate) the concept of predatory lending. There's a distinction between risk-based lending, which is common in business, and predatory lending. An example of predatory lending is talking homeowners into taking out a dubious second mortgage, using their homes as collateral, misrepresenting the terms of the mortgage. It may be both the lenders and the customers were making unrealistic assumptions regarding the customer's future income, the future home resale value or interest rates and future reset points, but let me point out that the bank also had to take into consideration the risks of default and weigh the profit of making this loan against the possibility of having to repossess during a down cycle where write-downs of repossessed properties would more than offset any income from making the loan. Now, what would be a legitimate point is if the GSE's (Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac) in the secondary market agreed to buy the loans, not doing due diligence, and effectively put the American taxpayer at risk for questionable loans. One could argue that the loans were imprudent, but that doesn't make them predatory. For example, many of the housing loans Sarah Palin is obviously referring to had little collateral down. It takes time to repossess a property, which may be underwater already and the occupants are living rent-free. It's the lenders whom are absorbing the cost.
More importantly, Sarah Palin was incompetently conceding a nonsensical Democratic talking point. She should have been talking about Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac buying subprime loan notes, failures in bank regulation, both on the state and federal level, credit bureaus, the SEC, accountants, etc. She should have been talking about the real estate cycle. I'm not saying her populist angle on this wasn't shared by McCain. The solution was not to extend an incompetently managed regulatory house of cards but to regulate more effectively. I would have pointed out that there If I had been in Palin's place, I would have pointed out a key SEC mistake in late April 2004, which effectively allowed the investment banks to lower the amount on reserve (to cushion against investment losses). I would have talked about Democratic-sponsored housing policy that encouraged lending to lower-income/higher-risk people. I would have talked about Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac exposing the American taxpayer to half of the home mortgage market, marketing implicitly guaranteed mortgage securities without controlling for geographic risk (i.e., overheated regions like California, Las Vegas, and Florida, among others). I would have spoken about the need to return to the basics of saving 20% to put down on a new house and the responsibility of the Fed to review gimmicky loans.
But let's move on. In the aftermath of the Democratic Party Health Care Law, it seems like an obvious point, but it wasn't a good idea to let Senator Biden's assertions about health care to go unanswered, which to the average viewer implied that she conceded the point. I didn't find her extended discussion on tax policy that illuminating. In a debate, learn to be brief, and bring the fight to the opponent. If you want to emphasize a few points (like tax policy), save it for your closing argument, but don't let your opponent define you.
Then we move to the point where Palin makes it clear that she is in charge of the debate, not the moderator--something I don't think I've ever heard in any debate. But just as disturbing, she let Biden get away with calling McCain a reckless deregulator. In fact, domestic spending expanded under the Bush Administration, as did regulatory activity. And while she was at it, she could have pointed out that regulations are a de facto tax on business that costs the economy almost $1T a year--money that can't be invested in the economy and create jobs.
Going back to the Bruce criticisms of Christie, Governor Christie was pointing out that if Sarah Palin wants to be a political leader, it's going to take more fawning Hannity interviews. To the best of my knowledge, Hannity has never seriously questioned Palin on her tax and spend record in Alaska, her disingenuous statements on the Gravina Island Bridge, her embrace of earmarks as mayor and governor, the ethical issues (e.g., Troopergate, her family travel reimbursements, and the status of her PAC); in fact, he'll often suggest excuses in the phrasing of harder questions. In contrast, not only has Christie, unlike Palin, gone on all 3 major Sunday morning news shows to answer unscripted mainstream moderator questions, but he has gone in to personally face teacher union members angry with his policies. Contrast that with Palin's unwillingness to go on Letterman's late night show so he could offer an apology to her in person over an unfortunate joke.
Of course, Bruce's self-righteous broadsides aren't just limited to Governor Christie, but she throws a few grenades at potential 2012 Presidential rivals Mitt Romney and Mitch Daniels as well, suggesting that none of them have had to put up the kind of scrutiny Sarah Palin has (Well, now, Ms. Bruce managed to trash all 3 of my current favorite Republicans, all in one shot.) All three of these gentlemen can speak for themselves, but let me begin by pointing out that Mitt Romney has been very gracious over Palin's possible entry into the 2012 race, Daniels has not committed to a race, and Christie isn't running. It's rather pathetic that Bruce takes Christie's constructive suggestion as a personal attack on Palin.
Let's just say right now: Sarah Palin hasn't begun to take incoming fire from GOP opponents that she will get once she decides to enter the race:
There is one thing Sarah as not yet truly received: Republican criticism. And when there have been whispers of criticisms, she and her team freak out. Remember when Joe Miller demurred when asked on Fox News whether Sarah Palin was qualified to be President of the United States? Alaska's former first dude, Todd Palin, spit of[f] a fiery email to Sarah's attorney:Hold off on any letter for Joe. Sarah put her ass on the line for Joe and yet he can't answer a simple question " is Sarah Palin Qualified to be President". I DON'T KNOW IF SHE IS.
Let me clear that up for you, Todd, and I will say it straight to your face: "HELL, NO!"
There are the ethics charges, her cronyism and failed appointments, the fact that she resigned from office (unlike Romney, Pawlenty, Daniels and others), her tax and spending (including alternative energy subsidies), her hypocrisy on earmarks and the Bridge to Nowhere, her unelectability, her lack of experience and expertise on public policy, her temperament and poor judgment, her inability to work with a GOP-majority legislature, the current problems with her signature pipeline project,... Keep in mind unlike her competition, while her state disproportionately feeds off the federal tit, Alaskans not only don't pay a state income tax or sales tax but each Alaskan gets an annual dividend based on natural resource revenues. (Some 25 municipalities do have property taxes and 89 municipalities have sales tax; there are also miscellaneous excise taxes.) The other Republicans have had to cope with opposition legislatures and nontrivial income/property taxes and marginal natural resource revenues.
As for the other candidates not getting scrutiny, all of the candidates mentioned were elected in blue or purple states (unlike Palin). Romney has already been attacked by the DNC, there are opposition websites, etc. Romney's religious faith has been attacked by evangelical conservatives, he was accused of trying to buy the GOP nomination in 2008, and his position shifts were a major issue during the 2008 campaign. Daniels was the first GOP Indiana governor in 5 elections, and he has not shied away from controversy, implementing an executive order his first day in office putting aside public sector collective bargaining.
Political Humor
Moammar Khadafy is blaming Osama bin Laden for all of Libya's troubles. It's going to be awkward when these two guys meet in hell. - Conan O'Brien
[So much of Qaddafi's "big tent" philosophy for Middle East terrorists...]
An original:
- Qaddafi employs a number of virgin female bodyguards. I guess he figures if he's going to be martyred, he doesn't want to have to wait for his 72 virgins...
Musical Interlude: My Favorite Groups
The Bee Gees, "Love You Inside Out"
